Hurt Locker
by citigirl13
Summary: Peyton and Lucas are together.  Brooke has one final thing to do.  DISCLAIMER:  I do not own anything!


**Hurt Locker **

**Okay, so... **

**I am the worst fanfic writer in the world. If anyone who is reading this that has read my other stories, I'm sorry that I haven't continued them. If I'm honest I doubt I will, definitely not for a while. But I'm writing my own story! **

**This story just came to my randomly – wrote it in less than an hour. I just had to write it.**

**X-x-X **

Three days. Three days after Lucas and Haley had gotten out of the hospital. Six days since they had won the State Championship. Six days since Lucas Scott had finally decided that Peyton Sawyer was the girl for him, proving it to her and everyone else with a kiss that actors couldn't do a better job of.

Six days since Brooke Davis had let Lucas Scott go.

Brooke knew, the second she woke up, it was time. It was today that she would finally do it.

She said nothing to her friends, nothing to Rachel (who was still trying to convince Brooke to cheat on the next test), nothing to Haley, (who still wasn't well enough to be at school, so Brooke had stopped off during lunch to see her), and nothing to Mouth (who would be there for her no matter what). She smiled and laughed, only darkening when she saw them together. Lucas and Peyton.

Technically she shouldn't be angry at them. She had let Peyton be with Lucas; had let Lucas go to Peyton. She should be "over it". And to everyone else, she would be. But inside, she couldn't ignore that stab of pain in her chest when she saw them holding hands; that sick feeling when she watched them shoot glances at each other in class (she use to love history lessons, because that was the one class that she, Peyton and Lucas all had together. When she was going out with Lucas and when she was Peyton's best friend that lesson was great. She would get love notes from Lucas Scott and friend advice from Peyton Sawyer. Now? Now that class was torture); and she couldn't help but want to burst into tears when she saw them kiss. But she turned away, ignored them, wait.

Wait until after school.

No one was around after school on Thursdays, so it was perfect. She hid in the bathroom until every single girl had gone, until the noise of the cleaners had disappeared. And then, she went to her locker.

She dragged the bin in front of it, and paused for a moment. Closing her eyes, she entered the combination and opened the locker.

A river of memories hit her head first. She remembered... Oh God how she remembered. She took out the mirror that he had wrote _Lucas and Brooke Forever_, how, every time she opened her locker, she touched her pinky finger to the mirror for good luck, even though it didn't make sense. She yanked the fairy lights out, the ones that reminded her of the night they had the hot tub, where the people who owned the house (she still didn't know who they were) had decorated their porch with.

Relentlessly she pulled things out, not daring to look longer than a few seconds. She had deliberately been avoiding it, trying to pretend it wasn't there. But once every other memory of Lucas Scott was in the trash, she had to look at it.

She lifted the pictures out of the locker. She remembered that day, the day when they had been so happy. He had spent the entire day with her, browsing through book shops and eating ice cream and pretzels. It had been her idea to have the photos taken. The booth was tiny, but they had squeezed in. They had kissed in that booth. _"You're full of surprises, Pretty Girl." _

That was the first day he had called her that.

She couldn't hold it in any longer. Collapsing to floor, she began to sob. Salty tears flooded her face, her top and jeans, snot ran down her nose. In a moment of humour Brooke thought what her fans, her cheerleaders and jocks would think if they saw her, the girl who was (of course) going to win Prom Queen, looking like a washed-out rat.

She sobbed her heart out: sobbed for the boy she would never have again, her the happy, in-love girl she used to be. She didn't want to be angry when she saw them, she didn't want to be bitter. She didn't want to be like this.

She sobbed for the way Lucas was always there for Peyton; how he had dropped everything, including his girlfriend of one night, to go on a road trip with her; how he ran into a building with a gunman inside to save her.

How she had always had to save herself.

She sobbed for the way Lucas had looked at Peyton – eyes filled with wonder, filled with appreciation for the gift he had been given – and how he had never looked at her that way.

She sobbed until the sunlight filtered out, until the halls became so dark that she had never seen them like this. It took hours until she eventually closed her mouth and dried her puffy eyes.

Still holding the photos, she walked in front of the bin. Eyes void of emotion, she tore the photographs in heart, just like her heart, and sprinkled them in the bin. Locker now bare, she slammed it closed.

She made a vow that day: she would never waste tears on a man again. She would never let anyone get close enough to hurt her again.


End file.
